Hungary’s human resources ministry signed a cultural cooperation agreement with the International Organisation of Turkic Culture (Turksoy) in Budapest on Wednesday.
The agreement will promote closer ties in areas including music, theatre, dance, as well as fine and applied arts and literature, said a statement from the ministry.
Türksoy was founded in Ankara in 1993 to promote cultural cooperation between Turkic peoples.
Türksoy is the organization of the Turkic-speaking states (Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) which is based on common historical and cultural heritage and promotes educational, scientific and cultural cooperation.
As we wrote before, Hungary has been granted observer status in the International Turkic Academy, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said after taking part in a foreign ministerial meeting of the Cooperation Council of Turkic-Speaking States in Bishkek.
In 2018, prime-minister Viktor Orbán attended the 6th Summit of the Cooperation Council of the Turkic-speaking States in Kyrgyzstan, where Hungary was granted observer status in Türksoy. Addressing his Turkic colleagues, Orbán said: “We live in Hungary, we are Hungarians, and we speak Hungarian. This is a unique and strange language, which is related to the Turkic languages. Among you, we are the people who have moved farthest West, and who also converted to Christianity.
So we are a Christian people living in the West, standing on foundations of Hun-Turkic origins; the Hungarians see themselves as the late descendants of Attila”.
Speaking at the yesterday’s signing ceremony, Mr. Dusen Kasseinov noted that giving Hungary the observer status a year ago paved the way for the further cultural cooperation between the countries of Türksoy and Hungary based on the shared historical roots and cultural heritage.
Commentary by Parvana Garayeva
